1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a substrate feed chamber and substrate processing apparatus suitable for use in manufacturing display devices such as liquid-crystal displays.
2. Description of Related Art
In the manufacture of display devices of various types such as liquid-crystal displays, the substrate processing apparatus (vacuum processing device) that performs the surface processing etc on the substrate typically comprises chiefly a load lock chamber wherein feeding-in and feeding-out of the substrate is performed between atmospheric atmosphere and vacuum atmosphere, a processing chamber wherein prescribed deposition treatment, etching, or heat treatment involving heating or cooling etc are performed on the substrate, and a feed chamber whereby the substrate is fed to a load lock chamber or processing chamber.
Previously, as an example of a typical substrate processing apparatus, there has been disclosed in Reference 1 (Laid-Open Japanese Patent Application Number H. 6-69316) a substrate processing apparatus wherein a single substrate holding tray that holds a single substrate is fed into a process chamber (corresponding to the processing chamber), a pre-heating chamber and pre-cooling chamber through a feed chamber capable of accommodating a single substrate-holding tray.
Also, in Reference 2 (Laid-Open Japanese Patent Application Number H. 8-3744) there has been disclosed a substrate processing apparatus whereby a single substrate carrier (corresponding to the substrate holding tray) that holds a single substrate is fed to a process chamber (corresponding to the processing chamber), load lock chamber and unload lock chamber (corresponding to load lock chambers) through a buffer chamber (corresponding to the feed chamber) capable of accommodating simultaneously two substrate carriers.
In recent years, there has been a marked trend to increasing substrate size, due to trends such as increasing the size of display screens of liquid-crystal displays etc and manufacturing and using as products several substrates from a single large substrate.
However, with increase in substrate size, the volume occupied by the chambers constituting the device necessarily becomes large.
Consequently, due to increase in size of the substrate processing apparatus itself that is used to handle these substrates, operating costs of the device are also increased.
Also, when the size of the substrate processing apparatus is increased running costs are increased, due for example to the need for a long time in order to ensure prescribed processing conditions of the substrate in deposition processing etc.
Furthermore, when holding a substrate of large dimensions in a horizontal position, there is a risk of flexure due to the weight of the substrate itself. If deposition processing etc is performed in this flexed condition, processing becomes uneven, so the reliability of the product tends to be adversely affected by unevenness of the display etc.
Also, storage and management of the device become difficult due to increase in size of the substrate processing apparatus.
Device design aiming at suppressing increase of installation area (footprint) and improving throughput taking into consideration increases in substrate size in recent years is therefore necessary.
However, in the substrate processing apparatus disclosed in Reference 1, a dedicated heating chamber for heating (preheating) prior to deposition processing of the substrate was separately provided. With such a construction, the area occupied by the device was further increased and this was also undesirable from the point of view of improving throughput.
Also, in the case of the substrate processing apparatus disclosed in Reference 2, due to restrictions on the number of substrates when storing substrates that were stored in another processing chamber in the buffer chamber, the efficiency of the feeding-in and feeding-out operation is poor, so that improved throughput cannot be achieved.
The discovery of a technique for solving the various technical problems described above was therefore desired.
A first object of the present invention is to provide a substrate feed device whereby the operation of feeding in/out of substrates can be made more efficient and throughput improved.
A second object of the present invention is to provide a substrate feed device of a construction wherein increase of the area occupied by the substrate processing apparatus can be restricted.
A third object of the present invention is to provide a method of feeding and processing of substrates by means of a substrate feed device as described above.
Accordingly, a substrate feed chamber according to the present invention possesses the following structural features.
Specifically, a substrate feed chamber according to the present invention comprises substrate holding tray storage device and a horizontal movement mechanism. The substrate holding tray storage device is made capable of storing simultaneously three or more substrate holding trays that hold substrates in a vertical or substantially vertical condition. Also, the horizontal movement mechanism moves this substrate holding tray storage device horizontally.
Thus the horizontal movement mechanism in this substrate feed chamber effects horizontal movement with respect to the substrate feed position for performing feeding-in or feeding-out movement of the substrate holding tray between any of the chambers of a group of chambers of one or two or more substrate processing chambers where prescribed processing is performed on the substrates and one or two or more load lock chambers where feeding in/out of the substrates between atmospheric atmosphere and vacuum atmosphere is performed.
By adopting such a construction of the substrate feed chamber, more substrates than conventionally can be simultaneously stored in the substrate feed chamber. Also, since usually the substrate processing chambers comprise one or more chambers and the load lock chambers also comprise one or more chambers, combining both of these, the substrate processing apparatus comprises two or more chambers.
Consequently, substrate feeding-in or feeding-out movement by this horizontal movement mechanism between any of the chambers of the group of chambers comprising the substrate processing chambers and load lock chambers can be performed in a smooth fashion without making the substrates wait unnecessarily.
Thus throughput can be improved by performing substrate feeding in and out in an efficient manner.
Also, thanks to the adoption of a construction whereby the substrates are fed in a vertical or substantially vertical condition, the space in the horizontal plane can be reduced compared with the case where the substrates are fed in a horizontally arranged condition (hereinbelow simply referred to as a horizontal condition). Consequently, apart from the substrate feed chamber itself, the area of installation of the substrate processing apparatus as a whole (i.e. its footprint) comprising this substrate feed chamber can be reduced.
Also, since flexure of the substrates due to the weight of the substrates produced if the substrates are held in horizontal condition can be prevented, non-uniformity etc. of processing of the substrate surfaces can be prevented.
Also, preferably, the substrate feed chamber is provided with a rotary movement mechanism. This rotary movement mechanism is of a construction whereby positional location of the substrate holding tray storage device to the substrate feed position either by the rotary movement mechanism alone or in combination with the horizontal movement mechanism can be achieved, by rotating the substrate holding tray storage device about an axis perpendicular to the horizontal movement plane of the horizontal movement mechanism.
In this way, feeding of substrates between all of the substrate processing chambers, between the load lock chambers or between the substrate processing chambers and load lock chambers that are connected with the substrate feed chamber (i.e. feeding-in or feeding-out) can be performed even more efficiently, so further increase in throughput can be achieved.
Also, preferably, the substrate holding tray storage device in the substrate feed chamber is constituted divided into a plurality.
In this way, it is possible to selectively drive only a substrate holding tray storage device on which substrates to be fed are provided with respect to both or either of the load lock chambers and processing chambers. In this way, the substrate feed operation can be separated by proceeding with a plurality of operations simultaneously, so the feed operation can be performed in an efficient fashion.
Also, preferably, the substrate feed chamber comprises heating device that heats the substrates.
If this is done, substrate heating can be achieved without providing a dedicated heating chamber or a processing chamber etc comprising heating device, so space-saving of the substrate processing apparatus can be achieved.
Also, preferably, the substrate feed chamber comprises cooling device that cools the substrate.
If this is done, substrate cooling can be achieved without providing a dedicated cooling chamber or a processing chamber etc comprising cooling device, so space-saving of the substrate processing apparatus can be achieved.
Also, preferably, two substrates are held by the substrate holding tray.
If this is done, at least six substrates can be stored simultaneously.
The substrate processing apparatus according to the present invention is of a construction comprising a substrate feed chamber as described above. Also, the substrate processing chamber is of a construction whereby two substrates held on a substrate holding tray can be simultaneously processed.